We have a variety of remote controls in our home, for the two TV’s (four controls) for the DVD player, for the CD/USB player, and for the ACs (4). That’s a lot of small plastic candy bars lying around. Then there are the chargers, two MacBook Pro chargers, two iPhone chargers, and one iPad charger that belongs to my wife. I gave her an iPad for Christmas this year. Sometimes it gets confusing, like with the TV’s.

We have a big TV in the living room, a 42 Toshiba flat screen, and since I couldn’t get the satellite box control to program properly to operate the TV, we have to use the TV’s remote to turn it on and off and adjust the volume, and the box remote to do everything else.

The TV in the bedroom should be easier, since there is only one satellite box, but it isn’t. We used to have an old analog TV which we had to buy an adaptor box for when all signals went digital, and I thought when I put the small flat screen in the bedroom (after buying the big flat screen) it wouldn’t be needed anymore. But I was wrong. I tried programing the flat screen digital TV ad nausea to no avail; I can only get reception if it’s hooked up to the box. So two plastic candy bars for that TV too.

Both having iPhones can be a problem, as the chargers are identical and women carry different handbags on different occasions, and when her charger is in a different handbag, the next handiest charger, mine, becomes hers.

I don’t know how many times I’ve come home with a dead phone and reached for my charger which hangs from a hook my wife thoughtfully screwed into a kitchen cabinet just for our chargers and found there were no chargers at all hanging there. Same with our headphones, but I can live without headphones.

A couple of years ago, my wife left for the UK a week before me, and the day she left I came home from work to find out my iPhone charger was somewhere over the Atlantic ocean safely ensconced in my wife’s luggage, along with hers. I went out to buy another charger. You would think that with three chargers the problem would be solved, but did you ever meet a woman who had less than three handbags?

The same thing happens with the laptop chargers. My laptop rarely leaves the house, or moves from my designated spot in the living room, my office, so to speak; so I always think that’s where I’ll find it. Unfortunately my wife often takes her laptop with her, and sometimes both chargers. Since I got her the iPad it’s been a little better.

THANKFULLY, we don’t have that problem with the air conditioner remotes. We have three air conditioners, the big Friedrich in the living room, a 10,000 BTU in the bedroom, a Frigidaire; and a 12,000 BTU Sharp I scored from a tenant a couple of years ago as a spare, I can pop it into the guest bedroom if we get a summertime guest. The guest bedroom also serves as Danusia’s office/yoga room, and she prefers to have an open window with plenty of sunlight streaming in, so no AC. There is a remote for all, and even two for the Frigidaire in the bedroom, which is great, since at different times during the night either of us might decide it’s too hot or too cold and don’t have to reach over each other searching for the remote to adjust the temperature. We achieved this feat quite by accident, at one point we had two Frigidaire units, the one in the bedroom and a 12,000 BTU in the living room. When I scored the Friedrich, a 14,000 BTU unit from a tenant that was moving back to France we gave the bigger Frigidaire to Danusia’s neice Kasia who lives on the lower east side with her Libertine husband Charles, who was loath to buy a new air conditioner.

I do have to give a shout out to Charles, though; as he was the one who drove and helped me carry the Friedrich up four flights of stairs last fall.

It wasn’t until this spring when I installed the ACs after the first hot days that we discovered that we forgot to give them the remote. So now we have the two in the bedroom for the one AC, as since they were both Frigidaire the remotes are identical. I may not always know where my iPhone charger may be, but I’m always sure my AC remote is right on my night table, right next to the two TV remotes.